Lanarkshire, The People Of New Lanark 1785-1935

Discover your Scottish ancestor through this unique collection of records from the industrial town New Lanark. The collection includes court appearances, employee transfers, poor relief applications, warrants for arrears of poor rates, work records, rent books and more. You might find out that your ancestor was a teacher in the New Lanark School, died in a fatal mill accident or was one of 55 people who owed money to William Gibson, the New Lanark surgeon, at the time of his death in 1831. Search for your ancestor or select the different record types to explore this unique collection.

Learn about these records

Each record includes a transcript created from the information found in the original New Lanark records. The transcripts are from a variety of record sources so the details found in each will vary. In each transcript you will find a combination of the following information:

Name

Year of event

Contents – detailed description of the information found in the original record. The contents for each transcript will vary depending on the record type.

Record title

Record type – Below is a complete list of the record types and the information you may find in each one.

Place

Source – includes a reference number from the archive.

Record types

The Lanarkshire, The People of New Lanark 1785-1935 includes 245 different publications/documents from the village’s history, which are separated into 24 record types. These include:

Baptisms – includes the name of the individual’s parents, occupation of father, birth date, birth place and minister. The records are from the New Lanark Baptismal Register.

Communion rolls – a register of the names and addresses of the communicants, created and maintained by the Kirk Sessions. The established Church of Scotland is Presbyterian. The communion rolls are from the New Lanark Church; Hope Street United Presbyterian Church; St. Nicholas Parish Church (Church of Scotland); and Broomgate First Relief Church, later United Presbyterian.

Cotton mills – documents related to the cotton mills including the New Lanark Mill Register, which records all employees and births and deaths and the General Ledger of the Lanark Twist Co., which recorded mill suppliers.

Criminal – records from the Lanark Sheriff Court, the local criminal court; Lanark Prison Register; and the Justice of the Peace Clerk of Lanark. The justice of the peace is a lay magistrate, appointed by the local community and trained in criminal law and procedure. The Prison Register recorded a description of the prisoner at the time of admission, detailing the prisoner’s weight, eye and hair colour. Most of the criminal records also include information about residency, trial date, sentence and an account of the crime.

Deaths – the death records come from the Hamilton Advertiser. Every year in January a full review of the past year was published. The records include the individual’s name, spouse’s name, death date, death place, residence, age at death and occupation.

Fatal accidents – there are only four reports of fatal accidents, one from 1899 and three from 1935. The reports include the individual’s name, age, address and death date.

Funeral societies – records of funeral society members from the New Lanark Senior Funeral Society, Old and New Lanark Funeral Society and New Lanark Junior Funeral Society.

Kirk Sessions – these records were taken from the Lanark Kirk Session Minute Books. Kirk sessions was the court of the parish. The established Church of Scotland was Presbyterian. Includes the names of those who appear in the roll of poor, a list of people receiving poor relief from the parish and those in trouble for fornication.

Marriages – includes the names of the couple, marriage date and witness.

Miscellaneous papers – individuals named in a selection of documents from New Lanark including the Lanark Heritors Minute Books, inventory of William Gibson Surgeon, Robert Owen’s diary, Thomas Robertson’s Memorandum Book, The Petition of the Inhabitants of New Lanark to the House of Lords in 1818 and more.

Newspaper notices – retrieved from the Hamilton Advertiser, the transcripts describe the newspaper article and why this individual’s name is mentioned within the article.

Poor law assessments – lists of individuals in arrears of their Poor Law contribution.

Poor rates – the list of those with a warrant to recover arrears to be collected by the Collector of the Poor Rate. The debtor’s belongings could be held until the debt was paid.

Poor relief – records come from the application for Poor Relief and the Register of Poor. Includes the individual’s name, age, address and allowed relief.

Rent books – details of those who paid rent and how much in New Lanark.

Schools and Institute – includes school admission records and school certificate books giving the names of pupils, length of schools and reasons for absence. Some records will include the student’s birth date and names of parents. Also includes reports from government inspectors about the conditions and progress of the schools.

Seat rents – seats or pews within churches could be rented yearly. These records include the family members’ names, the number of seats they rent and how much rental charge they paid.

Small debtors – details of debts owed and judgements given from the Lanark Sheriff Court. In the records you will find the person’s name, occupation, spouse’s name, whether pursuer or debtor, amount owed, date of judgement and final decision.

Valuation rolls – annual rolls including the name of the proprietor, tenant, annual rateable value, weekly rent payable and the occupier of every property in New Lanark.

Wages – details of a person’s post and wages.

Wills – this small collection includes a person’s name, death date, relatives’ names, occupation, residence and date of the will.

Workhouse – includes the date the inmate was admitted to the Lanark Workhouse. Also, includes records of those who were able to leave the workhouse.

New Lanark, the former cotton spinning village in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, was founded by David Dale in 1785 and was continued by mill manager, social pioneer and reformer Robert Owen.

In 1785 Richard Arkwright, in partnership with David Dale, opened a new cotton mill on the River Clyde in New Lanark. Dale started to create an industrial village for his workforce, but it was not until 1799 that Dale went into partnership with Robert Owen, a Welsh cotton spinner, that the village started to become an example for other growing industrial communities. Within the records we can find the marriage announcement of Robert Owen to Catherine Dale, David Dale’s daughter.

By 1809 Owen started to remodel New Lanark. He believed that industry depended on the well being of the workforce. He wanted to create a Utopian society without crime, poverty or misery. Construction was started on new housing and public buildings for both the town’s physically and spiritual needs. Central to Owen’s vision for social reform was education. He built schools for the community’s children, including an infant school, and did not allow children to work before the age of ten. A prominent part of the school curriculum was Geography, but there was also time allotted for military exercise, dancing and music.

New Lanark reflects the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment. Robert Owen left New Lanark in 1824 to develop New Harmony, Indiana in the United States. Today, New Lanark is a World Heritage site, through a process of conservation and rehabilitation the town has been preserved as an early example of industrial planned settlement.

The People of New Lanark 1785-1935

This collection has been created by Alan E Laurie and Nicholas Young. They describe their efforts as an ‘attempt to bring together in one place all the surviving details on the life events of the mill workforce, starting with the list of men and boys who went to Cromford in 1785 & the list of orphan boarders of 1802 to the village rent books of 1901-1921.’

Alan E Laurie and Nicholas Young have consulted all surviving church records (baptisms, marriages, communion lists, irregular marriages and cases of fornication), Sheriff Court and High Court records (small debt and minor and major crime) as well as the Lanark prison register, which provides a physical description of each prisoner and personal details.

All properties in Scotland have an annual valuation giving details of owners and tenants. A selection of these has been included up to 1935. They provide a head of household census for years when the census was not taken or has not yet been released. Rent books, wage books and letters books at the University of Glasgow have been consulted and details added to the index.

The list of children that David Dale recruited from the West Kirk Charity Workhouse in the 1790s and the petition from New Lanark to the House of Lords in 1818 bearing the signatures of over 500 men are among the more interesting discoveries included.

The poor are always with us and the records of those who applied for parish help provide a vast amount of family detail from people, who because of their circumstances, usually leave little or no documentation.

Alan E Laurie and Nicholas Young located and transcribed the school registers of 1850, 1851 and 1852 from 3 separate archives, the New Lanark school log of 1870 -1901 and the Admission Registers 1871-1927. They also consulted historical newspapers including the local paper, the Hamilton Advertiser (1890-1918). No stone has been left unturned. The greatest treasure is the Mill register of Births deaths and Marriages 1818-1853, fully transcribed.

In September 1877, Matthew Whitefield was sentenced to prison for the theft of 4 bottles of wine by housebreaking. Whitefield was married and spent most of his life in Lanarkshire and worked as a painter. On entering the prison he was described as having ‘Fresh hair and fair eyes blue.’ He was released from prison after 14 days.

150 pounds of stolen cotton

Historical Newspapers

Lanark Sheriff Court Criminal libels/indictments 1862-1870

Jane Todd, aged 17, and Marion Todd, aged 15, were tried in 1865 for the theft of 150lbs of cotton. They stole the cotton in small quantities over the period of two years while employed with Walker & Co. Cotton Mills. The girls’ stepmother, Rebecca Kerr (or Todd) was later charged with the resale of the stolen cotton. The girls admitted to pilfering the cotton from the mills regularly and selling it twice a week to various brokers in Lanark at the cost of 2d a pound. The young girls were sentenced to three months in prison. The stepmother was sentenced to five month in prison. The judge remarked that he believed the conduct of the stepmother far worse than that of the girls.

Excellent school reports

New Lanark School Log 1870-1902

On 3 September 1883, H M Inspector report, "This school is most faithfully conducted, and is in very good condition. Considering that the majority of the pupils in the higher standards were half-timers, the pass rate was very creditable. Composition, however, should receive more attention. Grammar in the fourth and sixth was very intelligently done. History and Geography were fairly good. Sewing and singing are receiving satisfactory attention. [Headmaster] J. Anderson has passed fairly.” Six years later another inspector’s report found. “This school continues to be faithfully and satisfactorily conducted. The pass and quality of the Standard Subjects were beyond the usual and the proficiency of the Class Subjects showed that intelligent means had been employed in teaching them. The junior classes made an extremely satisfactory appearance. The singing and sewing are both very well attended too."

Desertion of wife and children

Record of Applications for Poor Relief 1901-1905

Elizabeth Dickson, 28 years old, and her one year old son George were deserted by her husband George Dickson, a miner, on 12 March 1902. George told her wife that he was going to Shotts, a town in North Lanarkshire, but then on the 15th Elizabeth received a letter from him saying that by the time she received it he would be far from New Lanark. George Dickson was 31 years old, from Kirkfieldbank, and had been previously married. On 22 March 1904, Elizabeth entered the poor house and then left by 13 August. She gave birth to her son Robert on 30 August 1904.